


Carol of the Bells -- The Date

by rotrude



Series: Carol of the Bells [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Date, It's actually a part two, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Arthur and Merlin's normal, (or not so normal after all) first date.</p><p> </p><p>Written for Brunettepet's prompt: <i>More in the "Carol of the Bells" 'verse</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Carol of the Bells -- The Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brunettepet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brunettepet/gifts).



The moment Arthur settles on a tie he notices Percival's strange tic. Percival's never displayed any facial tics before that Arthur's aware of, so Arthur is led to wonder what has occasioned this one. “What?” he asks, fidgeting with the knot.

“That's a tie,” Percival says, without specifying anything but the obvious. Percival is always thrifty with words but this doesn't exactly help Arthur sort out what he means.

“I know,” Arthur says, waggling his eyebrows.

“You said you were going out for a coffee run,” says Percival.

Arthur almost strangles himself with the tie when Percival repeats his words back to him. “Yes, so?”

It's as circumspect a yes as Arthur's ever produced but somehow Percival seems to know something's off. “It's just that I'd – and I know I'm a simple body guard and not a prince – but I'd go for something simpler.”

“Simpler?”

Arthur takes a look at his reflection in the figure length mirror. His tie isn't a garish one by any means. It's blue and it's got these silvery oblique stripes that are barely visible unless you squint. It's really an understated tie and it matches his pale blue shirt perfectly. It doesn't look bad on his woollen trousers either, if he says so himself, and overall he likes it. “I'm not sure I follow.”

“You mentioned Starbucks,” says Percival, waving his hands at Arthur's outfit.

Arthur tilts his head at Percival; maybe the man's bashed his head in while wrangling the crowds eager to approach Arthur too closely, thus violating security protocols. “I've got a Rewards Card.” It's stashed in his wallet and it's been treasured there for five days, waiting for this opportunity.

“Well, that's not your typical Starbucks outfit,” Percival says. “I'm sure it's a fine one for the youth centre visit you were scheduled for this morning but...”

Arthur studies himself in the mirror again. This time he tries to picture a typical Starbucks patron. It's not easy since he's been five times so far (he fears he got the loyalty card because of who he is rather than because of intense patronage), but if he concentrates he can manage. Some of those chain coffee shops customers do pay attention to trends and some of them pop in while clearly haling from the office, dressed for business meetings Arthur can imagine to be almost as boring as state visits. Most of those customers, though, just wear down-time clothes.

“You're right,” Arthur says. “I'll change.”

It takes forty minutes and a phone call to the stylist his father had hired to make him look good and proper in a photo shoot (A Day in the Life, they'd called it, a feature designed to highlight the closeness of the royal family to the public), to get Arthur into a different and more down to earth clothes combo.

This time he ends up wearing jeans, a crew neck jumper, and a hoodie to top it all off. Like this he must say he feels much more confident about fitting in... and other things as well.

He's whistling his way to the door of his suit of rooms, when he hears the sound of Percival's clunky footwear tiptoeing after him. He turns around. “You're not coming!”

“Your Highness,” Percival says, “I have to? I'm your bodyguard.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, “I know that. You're still not coming. Have a game of Frisbee in the park with Bedivere.”

“But sir!” Percival protests and rather petulantly too for a man his size who's usually calm, silent, and contemplative.

“I'm going out with friends,” Arthur tells him without specifying the exact number, which amounts to one. “I don't need a tail.”

“You do.” Percival crosses his arms. Bent like that his biceps bulge threateningly. “You can't go out without your security detail, what if a madman strikes? What if terrorists...”

Arthur doesn't let him finish because he can't. He's lived with that long enough, he's mostly always abided by the rules, but now doesn't want to be their slave. There's some things he's got to do for himself like any other man on the planet. And this is one of them.

“Percival, I mean it,” he says, arching an eyebrow.

He must have used the right commanding tone, for Percival grunts and nods his surrender.

Before Percival can rethink the whole situation or ring up father's secretary, Arthur jogs up to the door and down the grand staircase, wishing he could slide down the banister the way he did as a kid. He doesn't do it because he has a dignity to maintain nowadays, but he grins at the first staffer he meets, causing the latter to goggle at him. He also steals the housekeeping assistant's terrier from her, wrapping the leash around his hand. “Need to borrow Cador for a while, Alice,” he calls out as he passes by while she's busy sorting a hidden cupboard close to the service stairs.

Paps decoy trotting by his side, he steals out one of the palace’s numerous back-doors, pulling his hoodie up once the guards on duty have recognised him.

He only tamps down on the grin he's been sporting for the past ten minutes when he realises that what with the changing outfit and the argument with Percival, he is, to all intents and purposes, late.

“Oh, shit.” 

 

****

 

Dog hopping by his side, Arthur careens down Piccadilly, head ducked so his hoodie won't fall back and reveal his features to an astounded crowd. To keep his head bent like that, he's developing a devastating crick in the neck, but he guesses that's just a minor discomfort. Discomfort is nothing in the face of the press learning his location.

They'd surely ask him was he's doing without a tail and then they'd start speculating and the speculation would make him even more late. If the press located him now his date with Merlin would be called off.

Cador barking in pleasure at feeling his need to run himself silly satisfied, Arthur speeds up and nearly collides with a girl carrying lots of shopping bags. “Sorry,” he says in a voice he makes more nasal in the hopes it won't be recognised.

In return for his apologies, the girl calls him a few choice names, so he thinks he's safe on the anonymity score. Usually people don't call him names to his face. On line, yes. He's read pretty horrible stuff about himself whenever he's googled himself – but not to his face.

Safe in the knowledge his incognito is still on, he makes it to the Starbucks door in time to stumble into none other than Merlin. Merlin's who's leaving the place with a pout on his lips.

Arthur trots forwards in an attempt to reach out for him. “Merlin,” he hisses. “Merlin.”

Merlin makes a double take. He scans his immediate vicinity, his eyes taking in both Arthur, Cador, as well as the other passers-by. He doesn't look as though he's recognised Arthur so Arthur has to go for the obvious and say, “It's me.”

Merlin's eyes widen. He stifles a laugh that makes Arthur think he's fine with Arthur's lateness until the pout makes a come back. “Yeah and late.”

“I'm sorry,” Arthur says, tugging on Cador's leash in an attempt to run his hand through his hair. He finds he can't do this without strangling the dog. “But I had to get rid of Percival and get Cador.”

Hearing his name, Cador barks.

Merlin bites his lower lip, looks at the dog with the beginnings of a smile, and then sobers up again. “Your Highness, if you wanted to cancel the date, you just needed to say something. Or text. Texting would have sufficed. Faxed even. A bit Phil Collins-like, but it would have worked.”

“What no!” Arthur says. “The only one I was ditching was Perce.”

“But why would you even?”

Taken by a spur of the moment instinct, Arthur steps forward and says, “Because I wanted to go on a date with you. Like a normal person. Because I want to tell you things involving how much I love the shape of your lips –” Arthur does feel himself going red at that but he ploughs over it because his embarrassment, damn, is not the point – and I want to do that with no one to overhear.”

Merlin blinks, flushes, scratches at his forehead and then smiles. There's a touch of laughter in his voice when he says, “You realise Starbucks is a pretty public place, don't you?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “But it's normal public. Not my-bodyguard-is-being-made-privy-to-everything-about-me public.”

Merlin's eyes soften. “All right.”

That isn't indicative of whether Merlin will stay or go. “All right what?”

“Let's go have grab some drinks,” Merlin says. His hand travels to the small of Arthur's back for a brief, but quite pleasant, second, then it's dropped. “I'll buy.”

Arthur beams.

 

****

 

As soon as they're in, Merlin's eyes swivel round the interior. “I never thought it'd be this crowded,” he says. “I mean I should have known. Look, we can do it like this; I can go order and you can grab that seat over there.” He tilts his chin towards it. “You have your hoodie on, I'm sure nobody will recognise you if we stay here just for five minutes.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No, that's not what I wanted to do. I don't want that.” So saying Arthur walks to the bar counter, Cador at his heels. He fishes his wallet out of his pocket, takes out his loyalty card and waves it at the barista. Before the latter has completely turned his way, half the patrons have recognised him, or at least Arthur thinks so on the basis of the collective gasp he overhears. “A macchiato, tall, and...” He turns to Merlin. “What would you like, Merlin?”

As the patrons fix their stares on him, Merlin goes red. At least the tips of his ears do and very conspicuously, too. “Tea, just tea.”

Arthur orders a venti for Merlin because he believes in largesse and hands the barista his loyalty card. “I presume the dog can stay?” Arthur knows that dogs aren't allowed on Starbucks premises, but since he stole Cador from Alice, he thinks he should look after him and not tie the poor beast outside.

The barista swipes his card, nods expansively, and says that the dog, “Is naturally very welcome, er, Your Majesty?”

Arthur smiles though the barista has botched the right form of address. The barista nods mechanically and only belatedly remembers he ought to prepare Arthur's drinks. Thankfully, though, not long after this Arthur finds he can retrieve his order from barista number two. When he has his drinks laden on a tray, Arthur lifts the latter, making sure it's well balanced, and walks over to the seat Merlin's chosen for them. Cador sprawled at Arthur's feet, he sets the tray down and passes Merlin his venti.

 

“Wow,” Merlin says, cupping the Styrofoam even while goggling at it. “You've ordered the super sized dose. Now my suspicions have been proven correct, clearly. I'm sure you want me to pay an ignominious rush visit to the loo!” When he realises what he's just said, Merlin goes cross-eyed. “And I just said that to royalty, you can see how barmy I am.”

“Actually,” says Arthur, removing the lid from his cup, “that's what I like about you. That you're yourself.”

Merlin frowns. “How do you know I'm being myself? You don't know me all that well.”

Arthur concedes with a shrug. “I've heard you. Talk and laugh at the palace. When you're with your uncle. You... you're you and you're not afraid to be. I like that. I like that about you.”

“0h,” Merlin says, “so you've overheard me being loud when I shouldn't be – I'm sure my uncle has clocked me one upside the head more than once for being like that.”

“But you haven't stopped.” Arthur's lips involuntarily quirk upwards. “Being like that. Despite correction.”

“No,” Merlin admits, sheepishly. “No, I haven't. It's...”

“Who you are, I think,” Arthur says. Perhaps it's presumptuous, but he feels it is so. He feels like he knows that about Merlin. That he's intuited something fundamental about him: his undaunted spirit. His naturalness and charm. It's the quality that draws him to Merlin. He's seen it, felt it, and he wants to bask a little more in it. “That's why.”

“You make it sound like it's almost a good thing,” Merlin says, leaning forward, displacing his cup with his elbow, then hastening to keep it propped upright lest his spill his tea. “Uncle Gaius would say I'm just a brat. 'Stupid boy,' he calls me. Well, most of the time.” Merlin smiles fondly.

“He loves you.”

“Yeah,” Merlin tells him. There's a smile playing on his face. It's not as quirky as the rest of his smiles but Arthur likes this one too. “I guess he worries about me because....” Merlin trails off. “Do you really want to listen to this? I mean, I'm sure you've got better things to do than listen to me go on and on about my family.”

Arthur makes a show of looking around and finding no engaging object. “Actually, no. And I asked a question. It'd be polite to answer, Merlin.”

Merlin grins challengingly. “Okay, all right. Boring story coming, I warn you. My dad walked when I was a baby. Never knew him. I think Uncle Gaius worries about me because he knows I'm a parent short. And I'm sort of his... putative son, in a way. He looks after me when he can. That's the reason behind him getting me small jobs at the palace and all that. He wants me to have a nice job like the one he has.” Merlin reddens. “And that wasn't me begging for a job.”

“Because you've already got one?” Arthur asks, dreaming of scenarios entailing finding Merlin a job that'll keep him close.

“Odd jobs,” Merlin says, taking a sip at his tea. “This is my gap year. I've got to decide whether I want to try uni or not. I mean, I know I can ask for tuition loans and that it's not so bad. I can repay them later and or not at all if my income is low enough, but it's daunting and I'm not sure I want to start out like that.” He makes a face. “Uncle Gaius says I'm an idiot, with a few moments of brightness, and that I should take his money because he's well off thanks to, well--” He nods at Arthur, “--but a debt is a debt, you know.”

They talk like that for the better part of an hour and Arthur learns more about leading a 'normal' life in that span of time than he has in a lifetime. And that's when it strikes him. How much he admires Merlin, apart from just liking him in a crush-like sort of way. Because he's showing him the world and telling him he's a spoilt prat but he's doing so with a smile on his lips and no didacticism, which is something Arthur can appreciate. He's got this way about him that makes him nice even while dishing home truths and Arthur likes it. 

He immediately decides that he wants Merlin to have everything he wants out of life, so he spurs him to go for uni, – because Merlin really is oddly brilliant-- and establishes that he wants Merlin to be a part of his. He leans close, very close, so that their foreheads are nearly brushing and says, “I'd love to see you again.” Arthur gets that all out in one breath. “For another dat--.”

And that's when he hears the infamous whirring click of a camera-phone going off.

He's sure the picture's going to hit the internet before he's managed to get a proper answer out of Merlin.

 

The End.


End file.
